Hello, hello, everybody. Good evening. For those of you guys who are in the far back near the cafe, please make your way over to your tables. In about 30 seconds to a minute, we will get started with our Bible study time. So please go ahead and take your seats, and we'll get started shortly.

Thank you. OK. Again, everyone, go ahead and take your seats at your tables. We'll get started with worship soon. All right. Let's pray together to begin our worship set. Let's pray, everyone. Lord God, we come to you, Lord, in prayer before each Bible study, recognizing, God, that there is the exercise and time that we need to spend over your word, looking it over, observing, asking questions.

But also, we pray, God, that your spirit will illumine and cause us to see powerful and wonderful things in your word. We also pray, Father God, that as much as we desire to have a learner's spirit and God, that we want to glean, Lord, we pray that you would help us in our both heart and our mind, God, that it would be washed by your word through your spirit.

And also, Father, as we study the passage this week, God, sometimes it's difficult enough just to fight our flesh and even say no to our own desires. And yet, we recognize there is a host of other distractions, temptations, and pressures that come from outside of us, too. So in all things, Father, help us to truly be alert, sober, and constantly walking with you.

We thank you for this time once again and lift up our song to you and praise and worship to your name. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's hands. And sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.

Lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. And sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief. The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day. And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.

Wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. And there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away. Dear dying lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power. Till all the ransomed church of God be safe to sin no more. Be safe to sin no more.

Be safe to sin no more. Till all the ransomed church of God be safe to sin no more. Through sins by faith I saw the stream, thy flowing wounds supply. Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die.

Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. Lord of every age. Lord of every age. Author of our faith. First, the last, the same.

The name above all names. Crown and majesty. Glorious prince of peace. Throne and God's right hand. The world at his command. The world at his command. Jesus, lamb of God, how great you are. There is no other savior. Every knee bows down at your renown. There is no other savior.

Merciful high priest. Merciful high priest. Lover of the least. Generous and meek. Protector of the weak. Sacrifice to death. For us, your final breath. You died the world to save. To overcome the grave. To overcome the grave. Jesus, lamb of God, how great you are. There is no other savior.

Every knee bows down at your renown. There is no other savior. And you will reign forever. You reign forever. You will reign forever. You reign forever. You will reign forever. You reign forever. You will reign forever. You reign forever. Jesus, lamb of God, how great you are. There is no other savior.

Every knee bows down at your renown. There is no other savior. Jesus, lamb of God, how great you are. There is no other savior. Every knee bows down at your renown. There is no other savior. There is no other savior. Okay, good evening again everybody. I just have two brief announcements for you guys.

You know just as a heads up again that this Sunday we have our members meeting and just as a quick note number one if you're a member and you know that you can't attend we do have a little absence form. Look it up on your email and there'll be a couple links.

Secondly because this Sunday is also the service fair please note that we're gonna have all of our service booths situated out in the courtyard and after the services they're gonna have handouts of information that you can just pick up or otherwise like previously after the membership meeting is done you can take time to visit with the reps from each team.

I recommend that even if let's say you're not looking to volunteer for something immediately it's good just to be aware and informed about what's going on. You're gonna have opportunities if you're a parent to talk to some of the you know ministry leads etc etc so see it as a good opportunity to gain information and awareness about what's going on at church okay.

And then secondly starting next week officially the cafe is going to be open. Let's give them a big round okay. So the cafe ministry as you guys know they've been doing such an amazing job on Sundays but from 530 to 645, 645 they're gonna do a cutoff. They'll have the cafe here open so that you can come to your studies if you want to do meetups etc so 530 to 645 officially starting next Wednesday okay.

Alright everyone please have a great time with your discussion groups. 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mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people cheering) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people laughing) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people laughing) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) All right, we're gonna get started in a minute.

If I can ask the people in the rooms to come back out. (people mumbling) (people laughing) Pastor Mark, Pastor Mark, Pastor Mark, do we need to check with them? (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) (people mumbling) Okay, is everybody out from the rooms? (people mumbling) Okay. All right, so there's 11 verses here, so obviously there's a lot to cover.

We're not gonna be able to get into too much detail. I'm gonna just give you a highlight, spend most of my time in the first three verses, and then just an overview of verse four through 11, okay, and highlight some of the stuff that may be a little bit more difficult to understand, okay?

Let me pray for us, and then let's get started. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would guide us and lead us, that your word would speak to us, that you would give us clear understanding, that we would not turn from your word to the left or to the right.

I pray that all our judgments, all our thoughts, all our emotions, our lives may be submitted to your word, so if there is any misunderstandings or our flesh, Lord God, that causes us to see things in a way, Father, that is not honoring to you, help us, Lord God, to be guided by your word and your spirit.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so I know you can't see this, those of you guys sitting in the back, but I wanted to give you a broad outline. Okay, you can't see, right? Yeah, I didn't want you to see, so it doesn't matter. Oops. Okay, so this week's text falls into three large categories.

I mean, you could have divided it into two, but you have... All right, give me a second. (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (audience laughing) (laughing) Every time. How do you get rid of the... Displace it, displace it. Huh?

(audience laughing) What, how did that happen? (audience laughing) Slideshow. Slideshow, right? Mm-hmm. How do you get rid of this? You wanted to just do a... So, I think I just go... From the beginning. Okay, hold on a second, let me... (audience laughing) All right. Hopefully this works. Okay, there you go, okay, thank you.

All right, let's start over. Okay, so you can divide this section into... Two large views, or three. I divided it into three here. The first three verses, basically, description of the false prophets. Okay, false prophets and false teachers. And here, example of God's judgment and... Sparing those who are righteous.

And then, he concludes with an encouragement here, "Then the Lord knows how to rescue the temptation." Right? So, the main point that he's trying to make here is it serves as an encouragement to those who are righteous to persevere, to pay attention, and it serves as a warning to those who are teaching false doctrines.

Okay? So, that's kind of like the breakdown that I'm going to be going through. I'm going to spend most of my time in this section, and then I'm going to pretty much hurry through that, for the sake of time, okay? So, the first part of it, where it says, "False prophets arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you." So, first thing, the guidance that I gave, if you looked at the Facebook last week, is whenever you see a list, it's good to kind of put them in order, so that you can see them, like, line by line.

If you put it all in a paragraph form, sometimes it doesn't stand out the way it should. So, whenever you see any kind of list of anything, put it in a way where it's easier to see. Separate each one, one by one, and sometimes you'll get better insight when you do that, okay?

He starts out by identifying false prophets and false teachers. What's the difference between false prophets and false teachers? Okay, didactic. Okay, so false prophets, most likely is referring to the Old Testament prophets, right? Where they were declaring, say, "God told me this, I had a vision from God." False teachers are basically interpreting, like, interpreting the Revelation.

So, in the Greek, these two words, again, there's a lot of, if you have a good word study, I think I gave you a couple as an example. If you have a good Bible program, it will save you so much time. Instead of flipping through pages, all you have to do is push a, like, if you had a Bible program, it says "false prophet," and you just push a button, and then the Greek word would come out.

Even if you don't know the Greek, there would be English, you know, English version of that that would come out, and then it will give you the definition of that, word for word. So, I would highly recommend, right, don't drink boba for a week, use that. One Disneyland ticket could get you two, okay, two Bible programs maybe.

I would highly, highly invest, right? If you are, you're doing an inductive Bible study, having a good Bible program would literally save you, like, hours. Because you just click of a button, especially the word studies, right, or cross-references. You just click of a button, and then boom, it will come out, right?

You'll be able to go much deeper, much faster if you did have it. So, if you don't have it, I highly encourage you to get it. The Greek words behind these two words is "pseudo-prophetas" and "pseudo-didaskala," teaching, okay? So, basically, they're false prophets, false teachers, and then he goes into the description of who they are.

He says they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, first one, right? Why is it secret? Most likely, it's happening inside the church, right? So, if it was obvious that they're coming, that you know who they are, especially in our circles, right, you say, "Well, if they're teaching the health and wealth gospel, or they're, you know, the pastor or whoever is asking for $320 million airplane in order for them to preach the gospel." I mean, they're pretty easy to tell.

They got purple hair. They're on certain channels, right? So, they're not that hard to identify when they're outside, right? But they seek, it says that the dangerous ones are the ones who secretly introduce destructive heresy. You know, this word "heresy," right, "hereticus" in the Greek, there's a distinction between the two different type of words that describes false doctrine.

One is "schism," which means where we get the word "to separate," right? This one, "heretic," the word itself literally means to have opinion, to have your own opinion, the word "heretic." So, the word "heretic" itself doesn't necessarily mean it's false. But a destructive heresy is somebody who is within the church, right, somebody who has doctrines that are off the wall, right, that we're going to have to pray to Mary to get to Jesus, or you're praying to, you know, Jesus was the brother of Satan.

Those type of things are not within the church. Those are things pretty obvious outside the church. Those are like you break off from those type of stuff. He's warning about doctrines that seep into the church that seem like they're Christian, but they're not, right? And that's why it says it's destructive heresies that are secretly introduced, right?

It creeps into the church, and you have wrong thinking, wrong life, and it is completely contrary to sound doctrine, but it creeps in because it sounds right, right? That's what he's trying to really get them to pay attention to. So the destructive stuff that comes into the church usually are not that obvious if you're not really paying attention, right?

He said even denying the master who bought them. So ultimately, all destructive heresies eventually lead to rebellion. This word for master literally means a slave owner, right? And he's saying that we've been delivered from one master now to serve the other master, but a destructive heresy that's secretly introduced usually brings you away from submitting to the true God, and you end up ultimately serving yourselves, right, which is bringing upon them swift destruction upon themselves.

So if you notice, one of the things that I ask you to do is look for words that are repeated, right? So this word destruction, right, destructive, destruction, or the word judgment. Remember, if you go down the list, you probably, if you did this, you probably see, like, those are the two words that gets repeated over and over again.

So throughout this whole text, the 11 verses, it's a warning against those who are bringing destruction into the church secretly, okay? And along with them, those who follow. He said, this is going to be so effective, he said, many will follow their sensuality. This word for sensuality in the English sounds like something sexual, and it could be, but it's a much broader term.

And so if you have other translations, you probably noticed that some of your translations says shameful, right? Or some of your translations says destructive. Or the King James basically says a way of perniciousness. Any behavior that leads to, leads to destruction, judgment, right? He says, but many will follow their sensuality.

It basically is describing somebody who's led by their flesh and not by the word, right? Remember how we talked about that in Romans chapter 7 and 8, and then we talked about that in the book of Galatians, right? Those who, those who, what, they invest in the flesh, they're going to bear fruit in the flesh.

Those who invest in the spirit will bear fruit in the spirit. So some people who are following their flesh, whatever they desire, right? And they're going to be following them, they're also going to be led into destruction. Because of them, many, because of the way of, because of them, way of the truth is maligned, right?

So, so much of criticism in the church today, right? So much, I'm not saying all of it, but so much of it is not against Christians, right? And I'm not saying Christians haven't made their mistakes. But so much of the criticism in the church are people who have the name of a Christian who are inside the church, right?

Pseudo-Christians who are being led by their flesh, but especially in our generation where the line has not been drawn for the most part, because the churches have been working overtime to get everybody into the church no matter what, without any standards. And so some of you guys may have thought when you came to our church, it's so weird to have membership, right?

Doesn't God welcome everybody? No matter what kind of sin you allow in your life, doesn't God welcome everybody? Isn't it about grace? And then, so there's no, there has been no line between the church and the world. So, so much of the criticism from outside the world comes not because Christians haven't been living a certain way, it's because there's non-Christians inside the church.

So I'm not saying everybody who sins is a non-Christian, but inside the church, many, right? Many have been following destructive thinking, right? And I'm going to mention some of that later. So we have to be careful that we're not quick to judge and say that guy's a Christian or that guy's not a Christian because he's not doing this or he's not doing that.

But at the same time, if people are living by their flesh, they're denying the master, right? And they're following false thinking, it ultimately leads to maligning of the church and his, his, his gospel, right? And this is why God calls us to make sure that the church is holy.

The church has to be a place of grace, but it also has to be a place of holiness, and neither can never be compromised, right? You cannot compromise holiness in order to be known as gracious, and you cannot compromise graciousness because you want to be known to be holy.

Neither is ever compromised in God. So he says that because of this, the church will be maligned, and their greed, ultimately, is their own greed. And the word greed isn't simply talking about money, it's covetousness. Somebody who may not be greedy for money can be, can covet fame, honor, right?

Prestige, notoriety, whatever it may be. He says their ultimate greed is themselves. They're not seeking to glorify God, they're seeking to glorify themselves in the name of God, and they will exploit you, take advantage of you. Who will they take advantage of? Right, now you can't see anything. Who are they taking advantage of?

People who are living by their sensuality, right? How do you get people who are living by their sensuality to follow false doctrine? If the false doctrine benefits you, right? If I start preaching a gospel that allows you to be comfortable living in your sin, who will embrace that? People living in sin, right?

So when you're under guilt, you have two options. Either you repent of that guilt and come to Christ, or you will change your doctrine so that you don't longer feel guilty. So a false teacher will come in, and to do what? To tickle your ears. In order to leave you alone, right?

So that you can continue to live in sin and still feel like, you know, everything's right. So all you've done is you haven't dealt with the guilt. So there's only two ways to get under guilt, right? Either you find justification in Christ by true repentance, or you justify yourself, right?

So in order to justify yourself without repenting, you have to condemn whoever is causing you to feel guilty, right? So there's only two ways to get out of guilt. Justification by Christ through true repentance, or you start justifying your sin, right? And so he says, in their greeting, covetousness, they're going to come tickle your ears to exploit you with false words.

They're not true, right? And that's why from the very get-go why we named ourselves Berean is because I've noticed, you know, early on, that people are not using the Word of God to come to truth, right? So we have a generation where we rely on catechism, where we rely on tradition, we rely on our discipler, we rely on whatever tradition that we came from, and we say, "Well, that's what I believe." And people are contested, "Why do you believe that?" They don't know, right?

So it's not really you. You're relying on tradition, right? You're relying on your group thought, but it's not based upon the Word of God. Sometimes if you are faithful to the Word of God, you will find yourself alone, and that's exactly where you should be, right? But when you are constantly concerned about staying with the group, that in itself is sensuality, right?

Because your desire to be accepted by the group that you're in won't allow you to accept doctrines that will take you away from that, right? Sometimes God will take you away from that because people are going astray. So you have to test the Word of God, right, to make sure that every thought you have, every behavior you have, is according to God's Word, right?

It's that their judgment is from long ago, is not idle, meaning that God is not just sweeping it away. It may seem like they're getting away with it, and they may be getting notoriety, maybe they're becoming rich and famous, but at the end of the day, it says God's hand is on them actively.

You just may not see it, okay? So these are all descriptions, not only of a false prophet or false teacher, but those who follow these false teachers, and that's why he says to watch out. So anybody who's living continually based on his sensuality, sensuality doesn't necessarily have to be something evil, right?

It could be bitterness, anger, right? It could be coveting. It could be self-righteousness, right? All of those things are open doors for satanic presence in your life because these are things that God wants us to repent of and put behind us, but when we allow it to linger in our lives, those things will cause you to accept certain doctrines and reject certain doctrines, right?

You emphasize certain things and de-emphasize certain things, not based upon the Word of God, but based upon your own prejudice, that this is what you want to maintain, so these things are from God or these things are not from God. That's why Jesus says the very first step of truly living is what?

To die, right? To die. If you are seeking to live, you will die, but if you die because of Christ, you will really live. So the beginning of true life is recognizing our own life needs to be put away, right? In order for us to receive new life in Christ.

Otherwise, whatever it is that you are holding on to blinds you, right? And you say, "Well, I don't think I'm blind." Of course, if you're blind, you're not going to think you're blind or else you wouldn't say you're not blind, right? How do you recognize that? What's in your heart?

What's in your heart? What are you pursuing? What will you not let go? And that's a source of your weakness, okay? The second part where he gives us three examples. I said two examples, but they're actually three, right? First, he says the angels, and then he says the ancient world, and then he says the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, okay?

So you notice there's three things. Like why did he choose these three examples? You notice the degree in each one? The angels individually is as high as you can go, right? So he says if God's not going to spare even an angel when they rebel, what is he saying?

The point is not look at the angels and study, like, how did they fall? What did they get judged? What is the point of this, what he's saying here? If God didn't even spare angels, of course false prophets aren't going to be spared. That's the point, right? So judgment is going to be carried out without prejudice.

That's the point that he's trying to make. He says they spare the ancient world. The whole world got wiped out, right? He's saying clearly, so that's why if you're in a large crowd and you feel safe because a large number of people are thinking the same way, right, you should remember this verse, right?

There have been periods when everybody was wrong, where everybody is under judgment, right? So it's kind of hard to imagine when the Bible says that the road to destruction is wide, right, and the road to life is narrow and few would be found on it. But how few? We don't know exactly how few, but we know that when Christ went to the cross, majority of the people, even though he spent three years doing public ministry, preaching the gospel, and everybody said he must be the Messiah, he raised Lazarus from the dead.

And when Jesus went to the cross, very few followed him, right? Now, would that be, we don't know exactly what the number is, but that is still true today, right? He said narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life and few will be found on it. So he says the ancient world and then the city itself, Sodom and Gomorrah, right?

So you see kind of like that individually, the world, and then specifically the city. So I think he highlights these for a reason, right? The angels, when they sinned, was cast into hell. So I'm not going to go into every part of this. The word hell here is not Gehenna, is not Sheol.

Those are the two words. The Sheol is the Hebrew word that we typically think of hell, and then the New Testament word is Gehenna, right? But this word here for hell is only used here. And I'm not going to spell it out because I can't read it. Okay, well, let me spell it out for you, okay?

It's not going to mean anything, but taratao. Okay. This is the only place in the New Testament where this word is used, right? So I'm not going to go back, go into the history. Maybe some of you guys read it in your, I don't know. You're not supposed to look at your commentary, but if you did, you may have read it that this was a Greek mythological word.

It was more of a cultural word, kind of like today if I said, you know, like if I said something and I said, "Oh, you know, you're going to end up in purgatory." Right? And if I say that, it's like, does he actually believe in purgatory? Right? Is he actually saying that he believes in purgatory?

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you're going to be punished. But maybe the cultural word that everybody understands what purgatory means, punishment for your sins, right? So we don't know exactly what it means, but when you say he was cast into hell, if you were doing this study carefully, what's a question that you would have come up with this?

Anybody had a question on this? Are all the demons in hell? I think this is inductive study. Are the demons in hell today? All of them? No. Why? Why not? Where did you get that? Okay. No is good, but you could have followed that up, right? Huh? One third are in hell.

Okay. I'm going to say one third fell. I'm going to ask you a third. I don't think they're in hell. Satan's the god of this world. He has demons. Right. When Jesus was walking on earth, what did the demons say? Why have you come before your time? Right? To torture us.

Right? To send us to hell. So demons were walking around at that time. Right? So this couldn't be referring to all demons, right? All fallen angels who have been sent to hell. So this is something a lot more specific than that. Right? So we don't know. We don't know exactly what it is.

There's a lot of guesses. Some believe that this is in reference to Genesis chapter 6, Jude 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. I don't know if you guys read that passage, but if you looked up cross references, my guess is Genesis 6 and Jude probably 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 came out.

In fact, I'm going to read Jude 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, and then you'll see the parallel between this passage and that passage. But my goal today is not to get too deep into this. It's just to kind of explain why you're doing inductive Bible study. You should be asking these questions.

Okay? Today, because of time, we're not going to get too much into it. Right? The ancient world, he said, Noah preached the preacher of righteousness. Is there a record of Noah preaching? Do you remember? No, there's no record of like Noah's public street preaching, telling everybody get in the boat.

You know what I mean? Or you're going to die. There's no record of that. Right? They mock him. Right? God says to go in, lock up. He locks up. Rain comes. Destruction comes. The end. Right? But he's described as a preacher of righteousness. Preacher doesn't necessarily mean he is opening his mouth and preaching.

His very presence was a witness of God's righteousness and holiness in his generation. But they call him the preacher of righteousness because of his life. Right? Obviously, there is a need for the physical preaching, the words being proclaimed. But sometimes when there isn't preaching in life, the preaching with words is nullified.

Right? If your life doesn't represent the gospel that you want to preach, they're not going to take the gospel seriously. Sometimes your life is much more powerful than any word you can speak. Right? Powerful meaning that it causes people to think and open up their heart, especially in our generation.

Because there is a, there is a, already a prejudice toward the church. Right? Hypocrites. Right? You say one thing and you live another. And so you have all these prejudices against the church or a lot of people who used to go to church who fell out. So we don't have a neutral culture that we're living in.

Right? Either they're Christian or they have a positive view, some of them, because of their experience with other Christians, or many of them, as you probably know, have negative experiences in the church. Right? So in that context, there needs to be preaching of righteousness by our life. Right? In order that we can preach with our mouth.

Here it says, he condemns Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, having the example. Right? Ultimately, Sodom and Gomorrah served as an example. Example to who? The rest of humanity. Right? That when a society falls that deep into sin, God's judgment comes. People are saying that we are either there or getting there real quick.

Right? As much as we are concerned about the state of, state of the world. Right? Right now. Like just the crazy things that are coming out right now. Right? Especially in California. I recently found out that they passed a law that young, I don't know how young, is it, correct me if you guys know, like five, six, seven, eight, I forget how young, but pretty young, that if they want to get a sex change, they can get one without the parent's consent.

Right? And I heard, and I don't know if this passed yet, but I heard that if a parent refused to give sex change to a child, they can actually come, child services can come and take away your children. There's crazy stuff going on right now. Right? And I've only mentioned one.

If we kept on studying, I mean, this is where the time that we're living. I don't know if we're that far from Sodom and Gomorrah. Right? Maybe, maybe even beyond Sodom and Gomorrah, you know? So he says, this is serving as an example. We are living in a culture.

But here it says, he says, he knows how to rescue a lot. He was oppressed by sensual conduct on principled men. Right? And then he says he was, his soul was tormented because of their lawless deeds. If we're living in the kind of culture that we're living in now, and our soul is not tormented by what we see, or we don't feel a sense of oppression and darkness around us, something's off.

For us to hear that, to know that, that these are things that are actually happening, and it just doesn't bother us at all. Something's off. Right? So he says that Sodom, that Lot was a righteous man, and because he was a righteous man, he felt the oppression of the darkness around him, and he was tormented.

Now, why is this important? Right? Because we need to pray. And I know that right now, because of this evil in our culture, that there is a lot of movements, and a lot of things that are going on, the how do we combat this, that we need to have more people in office.

All of these things are true, but I believe the very first thing that he calls us to do is to pray. Right? If you're tormented, first thing that we do shouldn't be marching. Right? If you're tormented by what's going on around us, the first thing that we should do is not simply to try to change legislation, although all of those things are important and essential, the first thing that has to happen is to pray.

Call people to pray. Right? To pray, to fast. Right? Because this is not something that we can do simply by getting organized, simply by talking louder, because this is a spiritual battle. Right? And so, again, I just want to highlight that as he is mentioning all of these things, that all of these things are here as an example, that before anything else, he said we need to come before God and pray.

Right? I'll bring this back up later. He said, "And the end conclusion is, the Lord knows how to rescue godly from temptation, to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially those who indulge in the flesh and its corrupt desires." Right? How many people are struggling with routinely going to porn?

Right? I know this is an issue. I know this is a problem in every generation. I also know this is a problem in our church. Right? Because we live in this generation, the temptation is on your phone. If you just excuse that and say, "We all struggle. It's so hard." Right?

You are allowing yourself to continue down that path. Right? Your comfort, your ease is more important than your relationship with God. Right? There's no other way to say it. Right? This is something that if you continue to indulge in your flesh and your corrupt desires, there has to be a sense of urgency in our life.

That beyond anything else that you're pursuing or you're concerned about, this has to be dealt with. Right? And it's not just about feeling guilty. Right? Because worldly sorrow, all it does is lead to condemnation. Godly sorrow leads to repentance and bears fruit. So in order to bear true fruit, we have to figure out how do I overcome this.

But the worst thing to do as you are indulging in the flesh to excuse this. Right? Because basically what you're saying is God is okay with this. But he's not okay with it. Okay? Because I guarantee you if you are living continually in this, Satan is already influencing your thoughts.

Right? What you love, hate, how you listen to sermons, how you do Bible study, fellowship, your pursuits, desires, what makes you happy, what makes you sad. All of it is being influenced by this, even if you don't recognize it. Right? So again, for the sake of time, I'm going to move on.

Right? But this is not something that a Christian could just excuse because you are actively heading down the wrong path. Right? And the Spirit of God cannot, right, guide you if you are constantly grieving the Holy Spirit in this. Okay? They despise authority. Usually somebody who's indulging in the flesh, they despise authority because they don't want to hear it.

Right? Because typically it's the authority that's going to come and say, "Hey, maybe that's wrong." You're headed down the wrong path. So you end up despising authority. Right? Because people who are not authority are not going to be challenging you. Right? The Word of God is not going to come to you.

But whoever's bringing the Word of God to you, you don't want to listen. They're daring. This means bold. Right? Audacious. Meaning, in your sin, right, eventually you're going to despise authority because you don't want to hear it anymore. And then you're eventually going to become bold. Right? You say, "Oh, why?

Why are they doing this? This is so judgmental. You guys are so legalistic." And then you double down on living that. Right? Self-willed. Another word for this is self-centered. Meaning, you don't care how to fix other people. You don't care if the Word of God is being maligned. Because you're okay.

Right? So, self-willed. You see the progression here? Somebody who indulges in the flesh, despises authority, becomes bold, and he lives his life self-centered. As long as I'm okay, it's okay. Right? They do not tremble when they revile even angelic majesties. In other words, there's no fear. Even though your soul should be tormented by the sins around you, even though there's sin that has crept in and you've allowed it, there's no sense of fear.

No sense of urgency. Right? Because your heart has become calloused. He says, "Whereas even angels are greater in mind power, do not bring reviling judgment against them before the Lord." And again, I'm not going to go too deep into this. I would suggest that you go and read Jude 4 and on because it's a reflection of this.

But at the end of the day, the application of this is there's a spiritual battle going on, and there is no sensitivity to their spiritual battle. Right? So we're not fighting against flesh and blood, but against principalities and power in high places. Right? And that's why he says to put on the full armor of God, and then he says, "Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray," at the end.

Pray above all of this. Right? So either if you are continuing to live in sin, that you are, you don't have faith and you're just faking it, right? Or your heart's become so callous. Right? And you're embracing, "I like this. I don't like this. This is judgmental. This is not," you know.

And then you've just kind of like created your own little God that is not consistent with what the Bible teaches. Right? And so he says he's warning them. Again, there's one theme in this whole text. Right? God never sweeps sin under the rug. He never sweeps sin under the rug.

Because when God says it's going to be clean, it's going to be truly clean. Not appearance of cleanliness, but real cleanliness. Right? But the way he does that is through grace. Right? The way he brings us to righteousness is through grace. He says that God will forgive you. No matter how deep, no matter how vile, no matter how difficult, he says, "If you are willing to fight against it, God will forgive you." Right?

He's not saying like, "Get right or get out." He said, "No, you need to get right. That's why you need to come to Christ and admit it and bring it out. Confess it. Find forgiveness. Find accountability. Find true fellowship." Right? And so by the grace of God that we are led to holiness.

Right? Otherwise, we are all susceptible to all kinds of heresies coming in. And usually the heresy that destroys us the most are not the obvious ones. Jesus is not God. He was never resurrected from Christ. It's not those heresies. It's usually the heresies like, "Oh, we're going to be gospel-centered.

So therefore, every imperative is legalism or moral teaching." Well, that sounds great, but it's not biblical because that's not how the Bible teaches it. Right? Social justice. Doesn't Jesus want us to care for the poor? Isn't that pure religion? Right? And then you can, "It's not just the gospel.

We got Jesus. God sent us here so that we can flip the world upside down, you know, and take care of poverty and racial injustice." He said, "Oh, doesn't that sound biblical?" He said, "No, God called us to preach the gospel. And if we preach the gospel, people's souls are saved.

And when their souls are saved, saved souls deal with prejudice. Saved souls care for the poor. Saved souls, right, will fight for social injustice. But our primary call is to preach the gospel." Right? And a lot of times the false things that come in, it causes us to say, "Well, it's the gospel.

Yes, it's the gospel, but it's not just the gospel. It's the gospel and this. It's gospel and that." And so when we begin to kind of, you know, turn left or to the right, it's because it seems right. Right? It seems right, but it's not. And the only way to be able to discern that is to pay very close attention to the Word of God.

Right? Test everything. Test if what I just said is true. Right? That's why the Bereans were considered more noble in character than the Thessalonians, because they tested to see if everything Paul was saying was true. They put the Word of God at the highest standard. Not people, not their own prejudice, not their denomination, not their church, not their leaders, but the Word of God.

Okay? All right. So let me give you the discussion questions for today. What are some false doctrines that you've seen propagated within the Christian circle? How were you able to identify them as being false? Right? Worst thing to say is, "I don't agree." Why? "I just don't think it's fair." Right?

That's the worst way to come to a conclusion, because your sense of fairness is from a fallen point of view. Right? Okay. Let me not go off tangent. Okay. I got things to say, but I'm going to hold myself back. Okay. If you notice it, if you like something or don't like something, how did you come to that conclusion?

Okay? Number two, have you had any major doctrinal shifts as a result of carefully studying the Bible? What were they, if any? Right? It doesn't have to be recent. It could be many years ago. Like, you had a paradigm shift because – not because a sermon that you heard, not because you were a part of a community, but you were looking at the Word of God, and the Word of God caused you to think differently.

Right? Number three, should Christians be fearful of God's judgment? We are called to fear God, and yet in 1 John 4:18 it says that love casts out fear. How do you reconcile these two thoughts? Right? Clearly the Bible says both. Right? How do you reconcile these two things? You understand the question, right?

And then four, how does the reality of spiritual world affect the way you live your life? Right? If you believe God is real, you believe angels are real. If you believe angels are real, you believe the devil is real, and the demons are real. If you believe heaven is real, you believe hell is real.

Right? How does the belief in the reality of the spiritual world affect you? Does it cause you to be fearful? Right? When I first became a Christian, I lived in terror because I was saved in a charismatic circle, and they attributed everything to the devil. Right? The music is devil, the movies are the devil, you know, and I had a hard time waking up in the middle of the night because I was afraid I was going to meet the devil.

No joke, you know, but it kept me sober. And later on, I realized that my fear was more based upon my prejudice of what I thought the devil was. And then the more confidence I had in the Spirit of God in me, it started to slowly drive out fear.

Right? But how does the reality of the spiritual world, the demonic world, the angelic world, does it cause just fear or indifference? Right? It just doesn't seem real, so it doesn't really affect you. Or soberness. That's why, again, let me just say something real quick, okay? That's why these scary movies are not good for your soul.

Okay? Some of you might not like it. This is a… The reason why it's not good for your soul is because it desensitizes you to the demonic world. And so, because you're entertained by it, you know, it no longer seems real. It's real. It's real. If it's not real, what are you doing here?

Why are you here every Wednesday studying a bunch of stuff that has no effect on you? What are you doing? Every Wednesday, what a waste of time. Right? Every penny that you spend, you could have had several Teslas. Right? Why are you giving that to the church? Why are you going to weird places around the world to share the gospel?

Right? It's because you believe it, right? You believe it. Right? But if you become desensitized to the spiritual world, yeah, it affects how you view your spiritual life. Right? So, I don't know how many of you guys are going to listen. Right? But personally, like, I don't think it's good for your soul.

Right? Because it does desensitize you. All right, let me pray for us, and then I'll get you in your groups. Heavenly Father, I pray for your blessing upon the small group time. May it be fruitful and practical that all our discussion would not end in theory, but in application, Lord God, of what you convict us.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.